About this project

Eclectica Magazine 20th Anniversary Anthologies

$6,571

pledged of $6,500 goal

113

backers

Eclectica Magazine has been online for two decades, publishing work by authors from around the world. We're taking our 20th anniversary as an opportunity to share the work of 250 of those authors in four "best of" anthologies, including volumes for poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and speculative literature.

This Kickstarter campaign is designed to raise, at minimum, $6,500, which is just enough funding to publish all four volumes through Amazon's CreateSpace program, covering the rewards and providing a contributor copy for each of the authors, artists, and editors involved. However, the campaign is also designed to exceed that minimum goal.

If we can raise our "stretch" goal of $21,750, we will be able to pay a competitive (for small, independent presses) rate of $20 per poem and $50 per short story or nonfiction piece. Over twenty thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money, but if the more than 250 people involved with the project are able to recruit three $25 donors each, we will meet that goal.

This is an exciting project. The quality of the work we've selected for inclusion is exceptional, and many of our authors have enjoyed major publishing successes since appearing in Eclectica. If we can raise our "ultimate" goal of $58,000, we will do offset print runs through Lightning Source, which will enable us to distribute the books to brick and mortar stores. And if we sell out the first run of any of the four volumes, we will double the payments made to the authors appearing in those sold out volumes.

We have pursued a single-minded goal all these years to publish the best, most unique work we could find in a clean, easy to access format available for free to everyone on the planet. We still believe in that goal. We also love books, and above all we want to do something to honor the authors appearing in these anthologies and the over two thousand others who have helped Eclectica thrive over the years. That is what this campaign is about for us, but we're also hoping our efforts will help shine a positive light on online literature in general. We'd like to demonstrate what can be accomplished without corporate or academic sponsorship, banner ads or $23 submission fees.

One measure of what can be accomplished is our performance over the years in the storySouth Million Writers Award. In the twelve years the award has been active, Eclectica has scored twice as many notable (54) and top ten (11) stories as any other online publication, beating out such luminous competitors as Narrative, Carve, Blackbird, Clarkesworld, Agni, Barrelhouse, and Anderbo. Those are some great venues for online literature, and there are many others deserving of recognition. We want to draw attention to Eclectica's amazing body of work, and then we want to say, look at all the other amazing things to read on the Web.

Whether you are a friend or relative of one of the authors in question, or you're a reader and supporter of online literature, or you just love literature--online or not--we ask you to help make these anthologies a reality, and the best reality they can be. Help us make our goal of getting these books made, or if we've done that, our stretch goal of paying our authors, or beyond that, our ultimate goal of seeing these volumes in your local bookstores.

PS: After climbing up on that hill and inadvertently channeling Ricky from Trailer Park Boys, I realized I didn't get the first anthology we did in 2004 into the frame. Well, here it is!

PPS: We still have a few boxes of this original anthology, and as long as supplies last, they are available as a donation reward. If this project is successful, our next project will be to reprint Volume One with the same goals of paying authors and getting copies into bookstores.

Risks and challenges

Unlike a typical anthology project, there is very little risk here. We aren't, say, soliciting stories about sleep deprivation and hoping we cobble together enough good ones to make a compelling collection. We already have the material and the authors, and the campaign is structured such that we'll do as much as we can with whatever funds we raise, so long as we meet the minimum goal. And having already produced an anthology in the past, we know what challenges are in store and how to overcome them. In the end, we will succeed in producing four fantastic volumes. How they will be received and how many copies we will sell will be determined in large part by the success of this Kickstarter campaign in exceeding the minimum goal.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $150 or more
About $150

All six prize choices (the four new anthologies, the original Best Fiction anthology while supplies last, and an Eclectica teeshirt), plus free shipping to anywhere in the US. Indicate alternate choice in case original Best Fiction is unavailable.